Monday, December 26, 2016

Suppose you were on a voyage to a colony on another planet,
and you’re in one of those sleep chambers. Then you wake up, recover from years
of suspended animation, then stroll through the ship—and find no one else
awake.

That is the puzzle Jim Preston (Chris Pratt), a mechanic, finds himself in. When he makes inquiries, he gets frustrating responses
from cheerful holograms. He finally figures out he was woken up early—ninety
years early. Unless he can figure out a solution, he will die on the spaceship,
alone.

As you can see from the previews, there’s a girl involved,
Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence). While Jim wants the challenges of putting his
skills to work on a new planet, she’s a writer who paid for a round trip to get
new experiences to write about. They are the unlikeliest of couples.

Passengers is a fun
and satisfying movie, in contrast to the awful movie Arrival, which I reviewed here. The holograms who give Jim cheerful
answers to his awful fate are genuinely funny. And the total despair he falls
into after being alone for a year, eating bland food and having no human to
talk to, is an experience easy to sympathize with, thanks to the affable and engaging
performance by Chris Pratt. Although his portrayal of a man struggling against
the universe is good, he gives the most depth to the man struggling against
himself.

When Aurora comes along, they have their awkward initial
scenes, then an extremely fun date (I
don’t think I’m revealing anything by saying they fall in love.) There are a
couple of implied sex scenes I could have done without, though oddly enough
Jennifer Lawrence’s swimsuit made me more uncomfortable. But the story goes
into full swing as we watch them fall madly in love, do stupid things together,
and inevitably throw stuff against the wall.

Although the rotating spaceship, shown from multiple angles,
is an awesome spectacle, their artificial gravity wouldn’t actually work the
way they show it. And there are problems with the climactic actions scenes—like
staring at nuclear fusion without eye protection. But if you want someone who
likes romance to watch science fiction, or vice versa, Passengers is a worthy experience.

Sunday, December 25, 2016

I remember reading as a teen a very detailed newspaper
article on how the date of December 25 as the birthday of Christ was a Medieval
tradition. That is, there was some kind of important pagan celebration around
the time of the winter solstice, and the church simply tacked the celebration
of Christ’s birth onto that as a way of coopting the pagans.

But it is well established that the church began using
December 25 as the birth of Christ a little after the year 300. This was well
before the Medieval period. So what was all that stuff about the date coming
from a Medieval tradition?

It was simply stuff and nonsense. Anyone who spent a half
hour in an average public library would realize the tradition was ancient, not
Medieval. Looking back on the matter, the article was as a subtle attack on
Christianity. That is, if the central truths of the faith are just Christianized
versions of pagan religions, there is nothing special or uniquely true about
Christianity. But the facts were made up.

And the attack would not work, anyway. Christmas may be a highly
visible part of Christian practice, but it is not a part of Christian belief.
That is, the Bible does not give us a date for Christ’s birth, so
deconstructing December 25 does not touch the substance of Christianity.

Now that the knowledge that December 25 is an ancient
tradition is widespread, the attempt to deconstruct the date takes a different
but familiar angle. The ancient Romans had a festival called Saturnalia around
the same time. It originally started on December 17 and later expanded through
December 23. So we are assured that the church made up the date of December 25
to coopt the pagan celebration.

Obviously, that is not a match. If these people who want to assert
a cynical motive for celebrating on December 25 are going to have the attitude
that “close” counts, they ruin their own argument. The Romans had so many
feasts and holy days, one could almost choose a date at random and either match
one of those dates or be close. The argument defeats itself.

More importantly, there are no ancient Christian writings
that said, “The Romans are being gluttons, drunkards, and gamblers during
Saturnalia, so let us say that Christ was born close to one of those days,
because that will help us convert people to Christianity.” Nothing even close.

The church at that time had their own reason for choosing
that date, and it sounds odd to modern ears. They decided that a martyr died on
the date of his conception. After making a nice calculation for Easter in the
relevant year, they added nine months and came up with December 25.

If you want to say this sounds as odd as the Medieval winter
solstice and the Roman Saturnalia stories, go ahead. But this was based on what
some early Christians believed, not made-up stories of Christians trying to
take pagan celebrations and making them their own.

A more biblical/historical method involves noting that Jesus
was conceived six months after John the Baptist was, and that John the Baptist
was conceived right after his father performed a certain priestly ceremony, as
recorded in the Gospel according to Luke. Historians then try to figure out
when that father’s priestly division was on duty. They tie this together and
come up with Jesus being born in December.

However, that historical calculation can be and has been
disputed, so we are left with no certain answer.

But, as was stated above, disputes about the date of the
birth of Christ do not strike at the Christian faith. Christians tend to be
comfortable celebrating Jesus’ birth on December 25. But it has nothing to do
with a cynical ploy on the part of the church to tag along with pagan
celebrations. The cynicism is in the minds of people who make such assertions,
weak and baseless as they are.

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

It’s been a while since I posted an excerpt from one of my manuscripts.
This is from my vampire parody, where the main character is Dee, a full-time
housewife.

To tee up this scene: Dee walks in on her friend Hope, who happens to be dressed up in a French maid’s outfit in anticipation of her husband
coming home. After some laughter, Hope goes off to change.

The idea is to parody urban fantasy by showing things from a
housewife’s viewpoint.

photo by SoHome Jacaranda Lilau

She heard Dee call her name. Hope
grimaced at the maid’s hat in her reflection, noting the polyester didn’t keep
its shape well. “It’s no bother. We French maids change all the time.” She
wondered if vampires could really blank themselves from mirrors at will. No wonder the females don’t bother with
makeup.

Still with the one earring in her
hand, she began to work on the left one when she heard Dee’s muffled voice
again. Something bad. And how had she missed the sound of a struggle on the
sofa?

Hope kicked off the little black
shoes. Her nylon-stockinged feet zigged and zagged on the carpet as she charged
into the living room.

Two vampires. Stockings or no, she
tackled the female vampire on top of her friend.

It was a klutz move, but it worked:
She and her opponent both ended up on their backs. But the female vampire was
on top of her, smelling like it had slept in some ditch alongside the freeway.
“I just vacuumed, you stupid vamp!”

Dee was still on the sofa, and Hope
got a glimpse of her friend turning into a whirlwind. Now free of the female
vampire, Dee whipped a leg up over her shoulder and kicked the male vampire who
was holding a sack over her—dead in the face.

Thursday, December 8, 2016

If you write for hours on end, you need the correct writing
environment. I usually start with pencil and paper in a mall. Why? Because if I
do most of my writing at home, I start to think of things I need to clean or
throw out.

click to enlarge

Then I enter my writing into my computer, correcting or
making changes along the way. Yes, I use a desktop. I can’t imagine doing
creative writing for hours on a laptop.

This makes it easy to research on the internet while
writing. Can this lead to distractions? Yes. But discipline is not hard to
maintain.

I managed to find a chair at Costco that fits me and is
comfortable. Spend the money for a good one. This is not just for comfort—it’s
your health.

And, of course, there’s the hat.

The one I really use has Bella, Edward, and Jacob on it. But
their faces are so trademarked, they probably owe money to Stephanie Meyer when
they look in the mirror.

Okay, I don’t wear it most of the time. But choose wisely,
to match your mood.

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

This is not a negative blog. But when I saw people who
should know better praising the movie Arrival,
I thought my head would explode.

For this initial part, I’ll say that if you like the star of
the movie, Amy Adams, she gives a magnificent performance. If you want to see
two hours of her on the big screen going through an array of emotions, you will
probably like it.

You just have to ignore the stuff coming out of her mouth or
the mouths of the other actors. I am now going to be very skeptical of science
fiction movies with A-list actors that are aimed at mainstream audiences.
I can sum up this movie with one word: illogical.

Saturday, November 26, 2016

With the death of Fidel Castro, a historic opening that may
change our part of the world for the foreseeable future will be in your hands.

The Cuban people are already in a state of transition, due
to Raul Castro having been the de facto ruler of Cuba for some years, and the more
recent Obama initiative of opening relations with that nation.

This is a small window of opportunity that may not be
repeated in our lifetimes.

The Cuban people, now deprived of a dictator whom they have
known for fifty years, wonder which direction they should go. The fact that
Fidel Castro was largely a figurehead for the past several years does not
change this.

They have tasted newer freedoms in recent years, and they do
not want to go back to the past. They have been ruled by Communism all these
decades, they have seen the failure of socialism, and they are sick of it.

The danger is they may want to lurch to the right. Having
been used to having a strong man rule over them, they may want another, this
time on the extreme right of the political spectrum.

If things go horribly wrong, they will end up being ruled by
their equivalent of a Putin.

Now is the time to take diplomatic initiatives. Raul Castro
must be told that to the extent he embraces more freedom in his country, to
that extent he will be shown more favor by the United States.

Foreign aid is normally counter-productive, because it goes
to the foreign governments, not to the people it is intended to help. But in
this case, if Raul Castro follows through with true reforms and surrounds
himself with comparatively moderate figures in his government, aid should go to
him to help stabilize his government.

You have the favor of Cuban-Americans from the way you
campaigned. Their older elements will be against showing any favor or giving
any aid to the present government, but you can use your political capital, the
same way President Nixon did when he went to China, to establish a new
relationship with Cuba the same way he did with China, without being accused of
being sympathetic to Communism.

Similar opportunities may be found in Venezuela, where their
socialist economy is collapsing.

Do not let old enmities stay your hand. I did not vote for
either you or your main opponent. But you will have this moment in time to exert
your authority and power as president to attempt to prevent either chaos if
their government collapses, or a new right-wing dictatorship, a mere ninety
miles off America’s shores.

Monday, November 7, 2016

Perhaps you’ve heard that there is an election going on in
the United States. Here in my state of Washington, all the voting is by mail,
which I think is a shame. Here I am putting my ballot in a drop box at the Crossroads
Mall, in a suburb of Seattle.

This wasn't to save postage; I just felt like doing it this
way.

A man who was holding a child dropped his ballot off right
before me. I think I delayed someone who came right after me by my taking a
picture. We might have just happened to converge at the same time, since I
don't know how popular this option is.

If we have a longshot outcome I’m hoping for, I’ll let you
know how I voted.

Monday, October 31, 2016

Ever browse in a bookstore, then look online at Amazon.com
on your personal device to see if you can get the books for a cheaper price?
You really shouldn’t do that, since it could drive your local bookstore out of
business.

But now you can have the same experience guilt-free at an
Amazon.com bookstore I visited on foot. No, this was not some virtual
experience. This physical store in Seattle’s University Village Shopping Center
is one of only three they’ve built.

Inside, they have typical bookshelves. I looked over the
science fiction and fantasy selections and saw they were noticeably different
from what I see in the three Barnes & Noble bookstores I frequent. That’s
because they base their selections on rankings on the Amazon.com website—obviously.

Each book has two prices: For instance, the list price for
this paperback Alexander Hamilton bio was $20.00. But if you were an Amazon
Prime member, you would pay the online price. Currently, that is $13.27.

I don’t think this is simply a way of driving people to
become Prime members—it would be a hideously expensive way to do so. No, many
people want to feel a book, weigh it in their hands, and leaf through it before
buying.

But at some point in the sick, twisted mind of Jeff Bezos,
did he plot on driving other brick and mortar stores out of business, to be
replaced by his own? When he saw Borders go through its death spiral, did he
know his secret plan was working?

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Not long ago, I saw parents escorting and staying with their
elementary school children at bus stops. This is called helicopter parenting, a
riff on how they’re said to hover over them.

This is not good for children. In ninth grade, I had to walk
two miles to school. Part of it was up a steep hill. Here it is nowadays, with
improvements.

It sure didn’t look this way back then. The steps were dirt,
which turned to mud the first day I had to hike up it. Many of the girls were
quite in distress over it. Later, they added crude steps in the form of
railroad ties held in place by pipes that were hammered down. The pipes had no
safety caps; just ends of pipes sticking up from the dirt or mud. We had to be
careful not to jam our legs on them as we climbed.

Often I had to carry my alto saxophone case, which weighed
thirteen pounds, in addition to my books.

Did I appreciate this at the time? No. Was it good for me?
Looking back on it, yes. Not just in the sense of physical fitness, but in the
sense of building character, which I now believe has to include physical
challenges at a young age with no safety net. I never saw any parents escort
their children up those steps. Now, parents drive their children to school when
they could take the bus. I was shocked to find out some years ago that there
were traffic jams around some schools because of how many parents dropped off
or picked up their children from school.

But now look at that path. They have installed nice steps,
instead of dirt. And there’s a railing. We didn’t need a railing as we toiled
up and down with our books and musical instruments.

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Mitchell is a space navigator who wakes up in a mental ward
with no idea why he is there. He overhears his captain saying to not let him
remember what happened. Mitchell is told he has an incurable condition, so
obviously he will never leave. But Mitchell knows he is not insane.

So begins “The Mind is its Own Place” by Carrie Vaughn, in
this month’s September 2016 Asimov’s
Science Fiction. (Sorry for the lateness of this post. If you can’t find
this issue at your bookstore, you might try eBay.) Is Mitchell insane or not?
The story is ambiguous at first, then the tension builds as he recalls bits of
his memory.

I talked with Carrie Vaughn at the 2012 Worldcon in Chicago.
She was very encouraging for my idea of a married vampire slayer. You can see
an excerpt here, but of course, she’s not responsible for any lack of quality
in my writing.

She wrote a young adult novel called Steel, and in the back is a helpful glossary on fencing terms.

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Last night, I dreamt I
visited a friend to watch the winding down of a Sherlock Holmes TV series. I
walked down to her apartment in a red brick building in England, and I sat
beside her on a couch as we watched. There were no behind-the-scenes insights;
just the last episode with Sherlock in his deerslayer cap.

public domain

The scene changed to me by
myself in a large auditorium, I think in California. I was there for the
winding down of Star Trek background scenes. A large, flat image of the moon
was against the high wall towards one end of the auditorium, and a few people from
Star Trek, including DeForest Kelley who had played Doctor McCoy, were standing
on a catwalk at that level for the occasion, smiling and apparently reminiscing
about the old prop.

photo by Alan C. Teeple

The moon was almost twice as
tall as a person, and a large clamp at the end of a lift was set to take it
apart, piece by piece. It grabbed hold of the bottom and pulled, making a
middle flap start to tear away from the rest, so it was obvious it was composed
of cardboard sections with the image of the moon spread on top, perhaps on a
plastic sheet. This definitely ruined the illusion of it being so realistic.

But that section of the moon
wouldn’t detach. Kelley and the others had to look at each other and amble
around a little on their catwalk to make up for the lack of action.

With nothing happening, much of
the crowd dispersed. I wandered on the bleachers towards the other end and
found Jeri Ryan, who had played Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Voyager, sitting by
herself. She was dressed in ordinary clothes and had her blonde hair down. I
asked if I could sit next to her, and she said yes.

photo by GabboT

We chatted as a couple men at
that other end stood at the top of a ladder, obviously in a dangerous way, to
dismantle some red metal framework that was as tall as a basketball hoop. One
of the men got down from the ladder, then part of the framework fell near him.
Part of it must have hit his arm, so he cried out in pain. This greatly
disturbed Jeri Ryan, so she stared at him for several seconds, a look of great
concern on her face.

A couple other celebrities came
by. One of them was Sylvester Stallone, who asked me a question about Star
Trek. When I tried to reply, he talked over me, making fun of Star Trek as if
it were a silly subject for children. Resentful, I realized that behind him in
the distance was a placard of some Neanderthal-like people, and I was tempted
to make a comparison, but thought better of it.

photo by Towpilot

After they left, a large
scaffolding structure rose suddenly in the middle of the auditorium,
effectively cutting the place in half. The people controlling it showed some of
the effects they could do, like making part of it shoot it up so it looked like
it reached the ceiling. They proceeded to dismantle it slowly, piece by piece.

I said to Jeri Ryan in an
apologetic tone that this was all anti-climactic, after the failure to
take down the moon.

The scene shifted to Seattle,
and we were inside some kind of Star Trek museum. The first part was on the
classic Star Trek, and she laid her hand on a tabletop display showing drawings
of two starships. They were very similar to the original Enterprise, and she
looked puzzled that the ships had a different name on it. I knew that the
Enterprise was part of a fleet that had several ships of the same class, and I
watched to see if she figured it out. She remained puzzled, and we moved on.

We went through a number of
exhibits, then we reached the one on Voyager. I said, “This should be familiar
to you.”

She was standing to my left,
and for a moment she was in her Seven of Nine persona: hair wrapped around her
head, a metal implant in place of an eyebrow, and her figure more pronounced
because she was in her skintight silver uniform with a corset underneath. She
said nothing but simply stared at an exhibit, implacably.

When I turned to look at her
again after an instant, she was back to normal.

(There are no copyright-free
images of Seven of Nine. Here is the link:

Friday, September 16, 2016

Since the attempted assassin of Ronald Reagan has been
released, I’ll reprise my review of Rawhide Down from my original post,
slightly altered at the start.

One of my picks for best non-fiction is Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of
President Reagan by Del Quentin Wilber. I remember when the news came in
that President Reagan had been shot. On March 30, 1981, a gunman opened fire on
Reagan with explosive bullets, one of which ricocheted off the presidential
limousine and entered Reagan’s chest. Fortunately, it didn’t explode.

Reagan survived, but did you know:

-The Secret Service did not have professional training until
relatively recently. That’s why during the Kennedy shooting the driver slowed
down after the first shot, the way anyone would.

-When Reagan was in the OR, he took the oxygen mask off his
face and quipped, “I hope you’re all Republicans.” This assured the nation that
he was all right. In reality he was in great pain at that moment, and he had
almost died.

-A doctor in the hospital responded to the call, looked the
patient over, then was shocked when he saw the face. The patient was President
Reagan. Then he realized there were all these men in suits standing around.

-Another doctor was operating on the president. He looked up
and asked if anyone else had been shot. What was going on outside? Had World
War III started? The men in suits stared back at him, saying nothing.

-Nurses stayed with Reagan around the clock, often after
their shifts were done. He passed funny notes to them, endless jokes and quips
written in weak handwriting.

This is a fantastic book on a crucial moment in history. Wilber
notes how professional the Secret Service was: In all the transcripts of their
radio calls that day, they never said that the president was shot, or that
Reagan was down. He had to be referred to by his code name of Rawhide.

Friday, September 9, 2016

At the start of my dream, I had crawled out of a cave below
the edge of a cliff where I had hid, and now after a series of misadventures I
stood on the top of the cliff.

I was standing at the edge of a gigantic corridor, much
larger than for a human being. The walls, ceiling, and floor were of stone. At
the end, to the left, was the opening to a huge lair. I sent a panel of stone,
as tall as the corridor, sliding along the left wall to seal off the lair.

A fellow to my right grabbed and shook me with joy at what I
was accomplishing. I had to caution him, because the panel was sliding so
slowly.

Pale extremities of a huge nature began to emerge from the
lair. Their odd shape gave evidence that the being who was emerging, whom I had
tried to seal off, was not entirely human in form.

A gigantic cry sounded: “Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum.”

I turned and ran. Suddenly on all fours and in pain, I heard
the rest. “I smell the blood of an Englishman.”

I had been half-awake, now I fully woke. I had rolled out of
my bed and landed on a couple stacks of books.

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Did you know the hills of Seattle used to be steeper than
the hills of San Francisco? During the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, immense projects using water cannons washed dirt down from the tops
of the hills. More earth was moved in these projects than in the digging of the
Panama Canal.

Too High & Too
Steep: Reshaping Seattle’s Topography by David B. Williams chronicles these
projects in fascinating detail. Of course, the houses and other buildings on
these hills had to be moved. The cover shows the “spite hills.” These were what
were left partway through the project, when people were refusing to leave.

This is one of a number of real photos of the hills

The height of those leftover hills show the original height
of that part of Seattle. For you locals, if you’ve ever puzzled over the term “Denny
Regrade,” that’s where the term came from: Denny Hill in Seattle was regraded
more than once. From the tallest point of the original Denny Hill, over one
hundred feet has been removed.

Where did the dirt go? It was dumped into Elliott Bay, part
of Puget Sound. Part of it makes up the land between Seattle and West Seattle.
As you can imagine, geologists are concerned about that land slumping into
Elliott Bay during an earthquake.

If you’re not familiar with Lake Union, it’s a sizable lake
inside Seattle. It used to be landlocked. Canals were dug connecting it to Lake
Washington to the east and Puget Sound to the west. When that happened, Lake
Washington lowered dramatically. If you’ve ever shopped in University Village,
it used to be underwater. Sand Point, which had a Naval base for a long time, roughly
doubled in size. And people realized there was a nice beach on the Eastside
suburbs of the lake, named it Juanita Beach, and tourists flocked there (though
it is now part of Kirkland).

Back to flushing dirt off the Seattle hills. Was it worth
it, to force those people out of their homes, to have this massive government
project to lower the hills, and to dump the dirt into Elliott Bay? David B.
Williams says no. Private enterprise, in the form of the motorcar becoming more
common, would have made transportation on the hills fairly easy.

So it was a huge government boondoggle. We have something
similar going on now, with massive tunnels being dug beneath Seattle for
commuter trains, a project that is way behind time and massively over budget, though
the private enterprise solutions of Uber and driverless cars are rendering that
project obsolete. But that is another story.

Thursday, August 18, 2016

I’ve never seen the Netflix series Stranger Things, starring Winona Ryder. Apparently some of it takes
place in a sinister lab in a forest run by the Energy Department.

This got under the skin of Paul Lester, who runs one of the
official blogs for the Energy Department. Uh oh.

Actually, Lester has a sense of humor, and he uses the
series as jumping-off points to highlight the work of the Energy Department. He
assures us there is no such sinister lab, but they do have one in the Argonne
Forest in Illinois. It “was founded to continue Enrico Fermi’s work on nuclear
reactors.”

The problem is, I remember watching a show on PBS about how
Enrico Fermi was doing secret experiments in Chicago to make a nuclear
reactor—in the city itself. He even had a man standing with an axe at a rope holding a
bar of graphite. At Fermi’s signal, the man would cut the rope and the graphite
would fall into the crude reactor, stopping a runaway reaction. Though if there
were a huge burst of radiation, the man would die before he could cut the rope.

For all they knew at the time, a
runaway reaction would have devastated Chicago.

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Last night, I dreamt I was on-scene for a website that simulates everyday background noise to help a
listener’s creativity.

photo by ToastielL

I sat towards one end of an open-air set of a coffee shop.
About eight actors of varying ages acted out their roles in ordering coffee and
other items while engaging in small talk. They gave their lines realistically,
constantly in motion as they walked around the faux shop. I thought they were
just going through a cycle of repeating each other’s lines, but they differed
towards the end. They gradually left the set one by one, very noisily.

I could see across and to the left another set where a recording was going on at the same time. I cannot remember
if it was a coffee shop, but it seemed to me that their voices would be picked up at a low volume for this
coffee shop production, which would add to the atmosphere of ambient noise.

After the recording was over, the writer rested his elbows
on the border of the far end of the shop, glasses on his brow. He leaned
forward and let his forearms dangle, looking defeated. He spoke across the set
to the producer, who was standing to the left of me. He asked, “Bad, eh?”
referring to his writing.

The producer assured him he had done a good job. The writer
seemed to be the typical sort involved in such productions—he mainly saw what
frustrated him, not how well everything had worked.

After they left, I walked up to the interior corner of the
set, near where the writer had been standing. I saw how realistic the fake
brick and the arch for the entrance looked, and I wondered at my naïveté in thinking
that the recordings were done in a real coffee shop.

I exited the set and saw to my left a number of sets for
dinner parties. One of them was about to start production with a large family
dinner party of perhaps ten people in a dining room, including adults and
children, all in the stereotypical pose of holding their eating utensils
upright in their hands.

This was a much more elaborate production. One person at the
near end of the set announced he would call room service. (This made no sense, since
it was in a home’s dining room.) He called up and ordered a dinner. At the end,
he grabbed a pot and struck it against a surface to make a couple of clacking
sounds, I think to hurry up service. Just beyond the far end of the set, I saw
a man take a large stick and make clacking sounds at the same time, since that
would be picked up by the mike more easily.

That done, a couple of chefs, complete with white chef’s
hats, began preparing the dinner. They were also beyond the far end of the set,
and a couple of them picked up a pair of immense geese. They squeezed the
geese, making them vomit steaming foie gras into stainless steel pots.

Thursday, August 4, 2016

How would you like one minute to summarize a novel you’ve
worked on for over a year? I attended the annual Pacific Northwest Writers
Conference, with the main purpose of pitching my manuscripts to agents. This
was down in SeaTac. (The unusual name came from this area being between the
major cities of Seattle and Tacoma. I’m not kidding.)

Besides the pitch sessions, they put on interesting
workshops. A helpful one described how writers should use social media, put on
by Joe Gillard and Nicole Persun.

I’ll let you guess who's who

The editors and agents introduced themselves during forums,
to give us a good idea of whom to pitch to. This was important for planning our
four-minute pitches, which I’ll describe in a moment. Below is part of the
agent forum, a little out of focus.

Third from the left is Sarah LaPolla, whom I was planning on
pitching to. Fourth from the left is Elizabeth Kracht. I had no intention of
pitching to her at the start, but I ended up doing so. Second from the right
(and badly out of focus due to my inadequate picture-taking) is J.D. DeWitt,
whom I also was planning on pitching to.

So on to the pitch sessions. In a large conference room, the
agents and editors would sit at long tables. When those of us who signed up for
a particular session were told to start, we rushed in. It wasn’t as bad as the
start of a rock concert—more like the opening of a Costco on a Saturday.

Whoever found his or her preferred agent first had to stand
on a blue line that was several feet in front of the tables. The rest of us
lined up behind. At the ring of a bell, the first person could walk forward and
have four minutes to pitch a manuscript to the editor or agent. We were advised
to sum up the manuscript in one minute, then let the editor or agent ask
questions for the rest of the time. At the sound of a bell, that person would
have to leave, and the next person could go up.

I didn’t get a picture of this year’s pitch session, but
this link will take you to last year’s.

No talking was allowed in line. If you think this felt like school,
you’re right.

I put in a lot of rehearsal for my pitches. If you think
aspiring actors spend time talking to walls, so do aspiring authors. I did all
right in my three pitches. Editors or agents who are pleased will ask the
author to send in sample pages. I won’t reveal the results of my pitches, since
that would be telling.

A major agent who attended was Andrea Hurst. She made
herself available for one-on-one sessions, first come, first served. She gave
me valuable advice on a manuscript pitch and a cover letter, which would normally
cost a good amount.

Latest word on trends: Andrea Hurst said that publishers a
couple years ago told her that dystopian stories are dead. Perhaps the most famous
examples of dystopian stories are The
Hunger Games series and the Divergent
series. Things are so bad, I had just recently found out the final Divergent movie will be made-for-TV.
Andrea Hurst didn’t blink when I said that.

Sarah LaPolla said that vampire novels are still unpopular. (The
Twilight series, both novels and
movies, set off years of submissions to editors and agents, which saturated the
market.) She said that only an accomplished author could get a vampire novel
looked at.

So this was a good conference overall. Here are links to excerpts from a couple manuscripts that I
pitched—an excerpt from a vampire parody, and an excerpt from my reimagining of
The War of the Worlds.

Thursday, July 21, 2016

Hey, everyone, I got to see Star Trek Beyond last night at a sneak preview showing, thanks to a
friend of mine belonging to a large company that rented out the Cinerama in
Seattle. Thanks, Rich.

If you want a movie with incredible special effects,
including attacks by swarms of drone-like weapons, people running around inside
the ship at unusual angles, and gizmos with complex moving parts, this is for
you. If you want a great plot with familiar characters, um . . .

The characters are
familiar. In fact, in the first half of the movie, they are just like the characters
in the original Star Wars movie. For my brilliant analysis, which has to
include spoilers, click on the Read More button.

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

On Sunday, a friend I hadn’t seen for a few months asked me
if I was reading anything interesting. I said yes, I was reading a science
fiction book about a comparatively young person who was suddenly made captain
of a ship. But I kind of stuttered to a stop, saying I couldn’t remember the
title or author. Then I realized it was because I had the e-book.

I explained that when I pick it up to read (on my Amazon
Kindle), I don’t see the cover. My friend agreed, saying that if she picks up a
normal book, she sees the cover with the title and author every time.

Thursday, June 30, 2016

I saw the shark movie The
Shallows, but this won’t be an actual movie review. I’ll just say there was
a lot of blood, so if you don’t like the sight of that, you may want to
avoid it.

I mainly went to see the movie for research
purposes: It featured a woman trapped on a small rock in the sea. That was the
predicament of Andromeda. You might remember she was a princess in Greek
mythology who was chained to a rock, waiting for a sea monster to eat her.
Usually she is portrayed as chained to a vertical rock face (and this is often
just an excuse for artists to paint a naked woman).

But the Andromeda’s Rock is located off the coast of Israel.
Yes, Greek myths could be rather far-flung. It is a horizontal bit of rock, and
I think the flag is not much taller than a man.

photo by

אני צילמתי

Sorry, no nude art

Here is an excerpt from one of my Athena stories, where
Athena and another immortal visit Andromeda, but not to rescue her.

#

They circled lower, towards a crude but level rock that
barely jutted out of the sea. Water lapped at all sides. The rock was barely
wide enough for a man to walk a few paces from one jagged edge to the other,
but the figure who stood there was a woman. Not yet in her twentieth year, she
faced the city and its shore, shoulders slumped in exhaustion, looking for help
that refused to come.

When Athena had descended far enough, she flew within range
of the woman’s vision, barely above the waves. She landed on the rock as slowly
as she could. “Andromeda, don’t be afraid. I want to give you some comfort.”

Andromeda stared back at her, eyes wide. White flakes of
salt encrusted her dark hair and her robe. Too stunned to reply, she stood
tense and afraid. Then hope flared in her eyes. “You’ve come to rescue me! I
won’t have to die! I won’t have to die!”

Her hands gestured wildly, but she couldn’t lift them above
her waist. Chains led from her wrists to where they were fastened to cruel iron
bands in the black rock beneath her feet. The chains were not meant to prevent
her from escaping: No mortal would disobey the ban by rowing out here in a boat
to rescue her. The iron links were to prevent her from being swept off the rock
prematurely. She was meant to be a living sacrifice.

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

A lot of the creative talent for movies has gone into television
in recent years, so I’ll start a new category of reviews: TV series. (If I ever
get Wi-Fi, I’ll have to change the name.)

So a delightful new show is BrainDead, starring Mary
Elizabeth Winstead and Tony Shalhoub. This was my favorite premier since the Battlestar Galactica mini-series in
2003. Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays Laurel Healey, a new congressional aide who
has to learn fast the cynical ways of politics in the employ of her brother, Senator
Healy. With an offer from Gareth (Aaron Tveit), an aide from the other side of the
aisle, she has to run through Washington, D.C. to try to prevent a government
shutdown.

She doesn’t succeed, because her side wants the government
to shut down so they can blame the other side. A lot of whimsy that feels
authentic goes into this, and the political humor is at the forefront, so the
alien takeover of some people’s minds is more on the back burner.

Yes, a multitude of aliens in the form of tiny bugs are in
town. They go into the human ear, like what happened to poor Chekhov in Star Trek II, and the people become
strangely creepy, like in Invasion of the
Body Snatchers.

The funny thing is, Luke’s boss Senator Wheatus (Tony
Shalhoub) becomes more efficient at cutthroat politics. He goes from a drunk
who longs for a masseuse to being a glad-handing dealmaker who upturns
Washington. This is bad for Gareth, since it makes Laurel think he’s a
backstabber.

What Senator Wheatus done is normal, but you should see the
evil look that Tony Shalhoub puts on his face as he does the scene. If you’ve
never seen evil Tony Shalhoub before, you’re in for a treat.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is the center of the show, and her
face is fascinating to watch, whether she’s showing anxiety, bewilderment,
concern, or whatever she’s feeling towards Luke.

BrainDead is on
CBS on Monday nights at 10:00 pm. (Or you can figure out some way to catch up
online.) The creators are Michelle King and Robert King, and the executive
producer is Ridley Scott. Yes, the Ridley Scott of Alien.

As delightful as this premier was, there were some political
mistakes. If political details make your eyes glaze over, of if you don’t like
spoilers, do not press the Read More button.

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Just stick that bookmark in the back of your throat and gag.
(Book Purge IV somehow didn’t get posted, but Book Purge III is here.) These
are books that I either liked but won’t read again, or was just disappointed
in. This time there were 6 non-fiction hardcovers, 2 fiction hardcovers, 3
fiction trade paperbacks, and 4 fiction mass-market paperbacks.

I won’t show the fiction covers because I don’t want to
offend the publishers

What they’re willing to pay is definitely going down. These
books were in pristine condition, and I think that two years ago I would have
been given $10 for half the quantity. This year I was only given $11.

E-books are definitely having an impact. If you can get on
Amazon The Martin Luther Collection
for 1.99 or Through the Brazilian
Wilderness by Theodore Roosevelt for free, that shows the pressure. Plus
there are all those used books for $0.01 (plus $3.99 for shipping).

So if you do your own book purge and do not get offered
much, please don’t gripe. The used bookstores are facing a frightening
landscape.

Friday, June 10, 2016

So, you think your boss gets on you? Bill Gates, the founder
of Microsoft, was famous for the long hours he put in at work. But what if you
worked for him and didn’t put in the same amount of time? He had a solution for
that: Bill Gates MEMORIZED HIS EMPLOYEES’ LICENSE PLATES!

photo by

Ricardo Stuckert/ABr

That way he could look out his window and see who was in.
This was from the man who memorized the moves of several chess games he had
played.

Saturday, June 4, 2016

This isn’t a full review, because I try to keep this blog a
positive one. This is a matter of clearing up expectations. If you want to see
a droll comedy that sends up society’s expectations concerning marriage, The Lobster isn’t it. It’s more of an
art film that’s meant to mess with you.

And I can’t make sense of the poster, either

The premise is that David is suddenly single, and he has
forty-five days to successfully find true love with a woman, or he will be
changed into an animal. He chooses a lobster. Hence the title. But that’s just
the first half of the movie. And although there are several references to these transformations,
that element was not essential to the story.

So if you want to see an artsy movie that has nonsensical
dialog, grotesque sexuality, violence against animals, and long pauses, The Lobster may be for you. But it’s not
for anyone who just wanted some hilarious social satire.

Friday, June 3, 2016

So I was relaxing in a park in Bellevue (a suburb of
Seattle) on Memorial Day when I heard a distant buzzing sound. Sure enough,
when I looked up from the beach towel I was lying on, a drone was flying high
above.

photo by

Radosław Drożdżewski

(The actual drone was more yellow. I was too relaxed to take
a picture.)

A couple nearby also spotted it and pointed upward. The
woman was more disturbed about it than the man was.

To me, it’s just a part of life now. Seattle is now in the
top twenty cities in the U.S. for drone usage. As a reminder, here’s how
someone buzzed the Space Needle with a drone, which was legally questionable
and should not be attempted.

Friday, May 27, 2016

Mr. Kohchi was sixteen years old when the bomb dropped.
Although he was outside Hiroshima when it happened, he walked towards the mushroom
cloud in a dutiful attempt to find his father. This firsthand account has
disturbing details.

Nagasaki 1945 by
Tatsuichiro Akizuki.

Dr. Akizuki worked at a small hospital at the edge of
Nagasaki. Since he did not go to the center of the blast, his account is more
detached. During his tireless efforts to treat patients, he realized they
showed symptoms consistent with exposure to radioactivity.

These are deeply serious accounts that will leave a lasting
impression.

Saturday, May 21, 2016

Most of Totem Lake Mall in Kirkland is getting torn down. I
remember before the mall was built, walking in the field where the upper mall
now exists with my friend Brian. (Totem Lake was never a real lake, but more of
a duck pond.)

Well, now it is getting torn down. You can see how these
storefronts were emptied out in preparation.

The truth, is Totem Lake Mall has not been a happening place
for years. It was not even a place I would go to write, since the fluorescent
lights overhead had an incredible buzzing sound. So now it is getting torn
down.